


not real

by queerholmcs



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hallucinations, i guess, john's hallucinations, john's ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 15:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2353448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerholmcs/pseuds/queerholmcs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock comes back from the dead only to be whisked away from John just as quickly as he came.<br/>Might write a few more, do it as a series of one-shots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not real

John’s alarm blared.  6:55 AM.  He threw a hand at it and it shut up; he rubbed his eyes and then somehow found himself on his way to work, as was the norm.

There was very little of interest at work – a child with the flu, a man who’d managed to plunge a screwdriver through his own hand, a girl with an infected ear piercing.  And paperwork – always paperwork.

The clock on his wall was seconds away from ticking five o’clock when someone opened his door.  “Sorry, I’m just finishing up here.  Doctor Connors should be open down the hall, if you need her,” he informed them, all without looking up from the folders he was tucking into his bag.

The shadow did not retreat, nor did its owner provide any explanation.  Not until John finally looked up.

“I’m afraid my situation is a rather unique one.”  His hair was shorter, his face tanner.  “Doctor Watson.”  His nose had been broken two, three times.  “John.”

John’s bag fell from the desk.  Papers scattered across the linoleum.  “Sher- no.”  John shook his head firmly.  “No, no.  No.  You’re – no.”

“Not dead, no,” Sherlock provided.  Sherlock?  No, it couldn’t – wasn’t possible.  He’d died.  He had _died._

John eventually gathered himself together enough that he could begin to throw his papers back into his bag.

“I’ve a cab outside,” Sherlock continued when John remained silent.  “Spare you the rush hour commute, at the least.”

John’s hand clenched around the handle of his bag.  _Not dead. Bastard thinks he can just come waltzing back in and pick up where we left off?_   But he nodded, put his jacket over one shoulder, and followed the dead-not-dead man out to the road.

The cab ride was silent.  If John was expecting him to, the cabbie didn’t comment on the presence of a ghost in the backseat.

Sherlock paid the man when they stopped in front of Baker Street.

“Who says I’m still here?” John asked after the cab had turned the corner.

Sherlock held up a silver key between two fingers, smiling slightly like the smartarse he was.  _Is,_ John amended.  He sighed and checked his pocket.  “Dick,” he muttered even as Sherlock unlocked the door.

Sherlock let John pass him to start up the stairs.  “We good, then?” he asked when John hit the halfway point.

John paused a fraction of a second, and he had the kettle on for tea before he answered.  “Yeah.”  He sighed.  “Yeah.  We’re good.”

Sherlock grinned.  “Brilliant, because there’s this man…”

And off he went, talking a mile a minute about some dangerous man and Moriarty’s network and how absolutely vital it was they stop this one man in particular and –

“It is you,” John interrupted.

“Sorry?”

“You.  You’re really back.”

Sherlock blinked.  “Well, yes, obviou-”

“Just – I’d never be able to imagine you being such an annoying dick so soon.”  But he smiled as he said it, and Sherlock took it as a compliment, and then continued on his monologue.

* * *

 

They passed the next few days carefully.  Sherlock kept to himself, working on the case, careful to make his presence subtly obvious in the flat, and John was able to avoid any scares of ‘oh god it’s you you’re not real’ for the time being.

Sherlock seemed to be aware of their current situation, so he didn’t ask much of John until the end of that first week.

“Got him,” Sherlock announced, typing excitedly at his computer.  “You still have your SIG?”

And there it was.  Sherlock assuming John was coming along.

Not that he was wrong.

“Yeah, upstairs.”

Sherlock nodded.  It was like they suddenly had some special connection between them again, because next thing John knew, he was rounding a corner to cut off the man.  He’d gone east around the block; Sherlock had gone west.

Gunfire.  John flicked the safety off and pushed himself harder the last fifty strides to the corner.

A shadow, a blur of a man, sprinted away.  But John hardly noticed.

Against the brick wall, Sherlock lay in a rapidly growing pool of his own blood.

John’s throat went dry.  “Sher- Sherlock?”  He stepped towards him.  “Sherlock!”  He sprinted the last steps to close the gap between them, and he knelt at his friend’s side, already tugging his jumper off to staunch the flow of blood at Sherlock’s shoulder.

“Hey, you’re fine, you’re going to be fine, Sherlock, you hear me, stay with me, you are going to be fine.”  He was hardly aware of the words rushing out all at once.

His left hand kept pressure on the wound.  His right dialed 999.

“Ambulance.  Yes.  There’s – there’s been a shooting.”  He gave the address and dropped his phone to focus more fully on Sherlock.  Though that grew difficult with his eyes tearing, because he could hear Sherlock gasping for air as blood filled his lungs, he could feel the respirations grow shallow and his pulse weaken.

“Sherlock – please God – don’t-”

An ambulance pulled to a stop along the pavement.  “Sir?” someone asked.  “Ambulance, sir, where’s the shooting?”

John couldn’t lift his eyes from Sherlock’s form.  “Can’t you see him!”  He waved one hand at the wound in Sherlock’s shoulder.  “He’s dying, Christ, get him a damn ambulance!”

The man fell silent for a moment.  Then he said, “Sir?”  And he sounded much more cautious.  “Sir – there’s… well, there’s no-one there.”

“He’s right there!”  John shouted now.  “He’s right there, Sherlock, he’s – he’s right there!”

“Sherlock?  Sherlock Holmes, sir?  I’m – sorry, sir, he’s been dead going on three years, now.”

Perhaps John fainted, or perhaps he simply repressed the thoughts that were too painful to bear.  But when he next became aware of himself, he was in his chair in Doctor Ella Thomson’s office, oatmeal jumper clutched in one hand.  Clean as the day it was laundered.

“Do you know why you’ve been having these hallucinations, John?”

No blood.

No Sherlock.

 


End file.
